Background
The pressure sensor is the most common sensor in industrial practice, is widely applied to various industrial automatic control environments, and relates to a plurality of industries such as water conservancy and hydropower, railway traffic, intelligent buildings, production automatic control, aerospace, military industry, petrochemical industry, oil wells, electric power, ships, machine tools, pipelines and the like. The principle and application of the pressure sensor mainly include the following:
1. strain gauge pressure sensor: the principle and application of mechanical sensors are various, such as resistance strain gauge pressure sensors, semiconductor strain gauge pressure sensors, piezoresistive pressure sensors, inductive pressure sensors, capacitive pressure sensors, resonant pressure sensors, capacitive acceleration sensors, and the like. The most widely used is the piezoresistive pressure sensor. Piezoresistive pressure sensors mainly use a resistive strain gauge, which is one of the main components of a piezoresistive strain sensor, and the resistive strain gauge is most commonly a metal resistive strain gauge and a semiconductor strain gauge. The metal strain gauge is tightly adhered to the base body generating mechanical strain through the adhesive, and when the base body is stressed and changes in stress, the resistance strain gauge is deformed together, so that the resistance value of the strain gauge is changed, and the voltage applied to the resistor is changed. The resistance value change of the strain gauge is usually small when the strain gauge is stressed, and generally the strain gauge forms a strain bridge, is amplified by a subsequent instrument amplifier and then is transmitted to a processing circuit display or execution mechanism. The metal resistance strain gauge consists of a base material, a metal strain gauge wire or foil, an insulating protection sheet, a lead-out wire and the like. The sensor is easy to limit during design, the resistance value of the resistance strain gauge is too small, the required driving current is too large, meanwhile, the heating of the strain gauge causes the temperature of the strain gauge to be too high, the resistance value of the strain gauge is too large when the sensor is used in different environments, the zero drift of the output is obvious, and a zero setting circuit is too complex. And the resistance is too large, the impedance is too high, and the external electromagnetic interference resistance is poor. Generally, the range of the method is from dozens of ohms to dozens of kiloohms. Specifically, the working principle of the resistance strain gauge is as follows: the phenomenon that the resistance value of the strain resistor adsorbed on the base material changes along with the mechanical deformation is commonly called as resistance strain effect. Taking the metal wire strain resistance as an example, when the metal wire is acted by an external force, the length and the sectional area of the metal wire are changed, and the resistance value of the metal wire is changed. If the metal wire is extended by external force, the length is increased, the sectional area is reduced, and the resistance value is increased; when the wire is compressed by an external force, the length decreases and the cross section increases, and the resistance decreases. The strain of the strained wire can be obtained by measuring the change in resistance (usually by measuring the voltage across the resistance).
2. Ceramic pressure sensor: the pressure is directly acted on the front surface of the ceramic diaphragm to make the diaphragm generate tiny deformation, the thick film resistor is printed on the back surface of the ceramic diaphragm and is connected with a Wheatstone bridge (closed bridge), because of the piezoresistive effect of the piezoresistor, the bridge generates a voltage signal which is in direct proportion to the pressure, highly linear and in direct proportion to the excitation voltage, and the standard signal is calibrated according to different pressure ranges, and can be compatible with a strain sensor.
3. Diffused silicon pressure sensor: the working principle is that the pressure of the measured medium directly acts on the diaphragm (stainless steel or ceramic) of the sensor, so that the diaphragm generates micro displacement in direct proportion to the pressure of the medium, the resistance value of the sensor changes, the change is detected by an electronic circuit, and a standard measurement signal corresponding to the pressure is output.
4. Sapphire pressure sensor: by utilizing the working principle of power transformation, silicon-sapphire is used as a semiconductor sensitive element, and the semiconductor sensitive element has the metering characteristic of incomparable ratio.
5. A piezoelectric pressure sensor: piezoelectric materials used for primary nomenclature include quartz, potassium tartrate and ammonium dihydrogen phosphate. The piezoelectric effect is the main working principle of piezoelectric sensors, which cannot be used for static measurements, because the charge, which is subjected to the action of an external force, is only stored when the circuit has an infinite input impedance.
For application to flexible wearable devices or clothing, extremely high sensitivity is required. The function principle and the application mode of the existing pressure sensor are difficult to meet the requirements. In the prior art, PVDF or ZnO piezoelectric thin films are used mostly, although the materials can realize the pressure sensing function, the sensitivity is not very high due to the influence of material characteristics, and the extremely weak strain cannot be identified accurately. In addition, when the materials are applied to the flexible wearable electronic industry, high sensitivity under the flexible condition cannot be realized, and stability is poor.
Patent CN104359597A discloses a pressure sensor, this kind of pressure sensor adopts the conducting material of two-layer internal surface covering carbon nanotube or graphite alkene, the dislocation equipment, when receiving extrusion deformation, two-layer surface area of contact changes, thereby lead to resistance to change, but two-layer conducting material need cover on the surface that has certain topography in this technology, the technology is complicated, difficult intact realization, and measured sensitivity is influenced by the surface smoothness, and the accurate control degree of difficulty of surface smoothness is very big, and is with high costs, it is difficult to scale application.
Disclosure of Invention
The invention aims to provide a flexible pressure sensor with high sensitivity and high reliability aiming at the defects of the prior art;
the invention also aims to provide a preparation method of the pressure sensor, which is simple and feasible, has low cost and is suitable for industrial large-scale production.
The purpose of the invention is realized by the following technical scheme:
a flexible pressure sensor comprises an induction layer, a substrate layer, an isolation layer and electrodes, wherein the isolation layer is positioned between the induction layer and the substrate layer and is bonded with the induction layer and the substrate layer together, and the electric contact between the induction layer and the substrate layer is isolated discontinuously; a first conducting layer is arranged on the surface of the induction layer, a second conducting layer is arranged on the surface of the substrate layer, and the first conducting layer and the second conducting layer are attached to the isolation layer in an opposite mode; and the electrode is led out from the first conducting layer or the second conducting layer and is connected with an external circuit.
Preferably, the first conducting layer or the second conducting layer is one or more composite films of a graphene film, a carbon nanotube film, a nano silver wire film, a metal grid film, a carbon fiber film or a conducting resin film; preferably, the first conducting layer or the second conducting layer is a graphene film; further preferably, the graphene film carries 1-20 layers of graphene, preferably 1 layer of graphene.
Preferably, the back surface of the first conductive layer in the sensing layer is a film-shaped or sheet-shaped elastic base material, preferably is a composite material of one or more than two of silica gel, rubber, silicone rubber or hot melt adhesive, and further preferably is PDMS or TPE;
thermoplastic elastomer tpe (thermoplastic elastomer) is a material with the characteristics of high elasticity, high strength, high resilience and injection processability of rubber. The environment-friendly, non-toxic and safe coating has the advantages of environmental protection, no toxicity, safety, excellent colorability, soft touch, weather resistance, fatigue resistance, temperature resistance and excellent processability.
Polydimethylsiloxane pdms (polydimethylsiloxane), abbreviated to silicone. The polymer material has the characteristics of low cost, simple use, good adhesion with a silicon wafer, good chemical inertness and the like, and is widely applied to the fields of microfluidics and the like. The solid dimethyl siloxane is a silica gel, non-toxic, hydrophobic (hydrophic) and water-repellent, inert substance, and is a non-flammable, transparent elastomer. The dimethyl siloxane has simple and rapid manufacturing process, material cost far lower than that of a silicon wafer, good light transmittance, good biocompatibility, easy room-temperature bonding with various materials, high structure flexibility (structural flexibility) caused by low Young's modulus (Young's modulus), and the like.
Preferably, the thickness of the elastic substrate is 0.1 to 2mm, for example: 0.1mm, 0.2mm, 0.5mm, 0.8mm, 1.0mm, 1.3mm, 1.5mm, 1.7mm, 2mm, etc.; preferably 0.5 mm.
Preferably, the substrate layer is a flexible substrate, specifically a plastic film, preferably PET; the thickness of the flexible substrate is 1 μm to 10mm, for example: 1 μm, 10 μm, 20 μm, 50 μm, 70 μm, 100 μm, 300 μm, 500 μm, 800 μm, 1mm, 2mm, 5mm, 6mm, 8mm, 10mm, etc.; preferably 20-100 μm, for example: 20 μm, 30 μm, 40 μm, 50 μm, 60 μm, 70 μm, 80 μm, 90 μm, 100 μm, and the like.
Preferably, the sensing layer is a thin film formed by transferring a layer of graphene in a sensing region set on PDMS; the substrate layer is a film with a layer of graphene transferred on PET.
Preferably, the material of the isolation layer is an insulating material, preferably silicon dioxide balls or insulating UV-curable resin.
Further preferably, the spacer layer consists of discrete dots or lines having a thickness of 100nm-1 mm. For example: the thickness is 100nm, 500nm, 800nm, 1 μm, 50 μm, 100 μm, 200 μm, 500 μm, 700 μm, 1mm, or the like.
More preferably, the average distance between two adjacent dots or lines is 1 μm to 100. mu.m. For example: average pitch of 1 μm, 5 μm, 10 μm, 25 μm, 50 μm, 75 μm, 80 μm, 95 μm, 100 μm, etc
The discrete points are silicon dioxide spheres with the particle size of 3 +/-0.5 mu m or UV curing resin with the cylinder height of 1 +/-0.1 mu m and the diameter of 1 +/-0.1 mu m;
preferably, the isolation layer is formed by coating silica spheres on the substrate or coating cylindrical UV-curable resin on the substrate and curing. The coating density of the silicon dioxide spheres is that the average distance between two adjacent silicon dioxide spheres is 10-20 mu m; the coating density of the UV-curable resin is such that UV-curable resin cylinders are uniformly distributed at the four vertices of a continuous square with a side length of 5 μm.
Preferably, the flexible sensor is provided with one or more sensing areas, and each sensing area is enclosed by bonding and packaging of the sensing layer, the substrate layer and the isolation layer.
Preferably, the sheet resistance uniformity of the first conductive layer or the second conductive layer in each sensing region is not more than 50%.
Preferably, each sensing area is led out of at least one pair of positive and negative electrodes, and the electrodes are silver paste electrodes.
The preparation method of the flexible pressure sensor comprises the following steps:
1) preparing a sensing layer: transferring a graphene film or coating a layer of conductive material on an elastic substrate to serve as an induction layer;
2) preparation of the substrate layer: transferring a graphene film or coating a layer of conductive material on a flexible substrate to serve as a substrate layer;
3) preparing an isolation layer: coating an isolation material on the surface of the conductive material of the substrate layer;
5) leading out an electrode: a pair of electrodes is led out from the conductive material of one of the induction layer or the substrate layer, or one electrode is led out from the conductive material of the induction layer or the substrate layer;
6) forming the inductor: and (3) bonding the induction layer and the two conducting layers of the substrate layer coated with the isolation layer together, and curing and packaging the induction layer and the substrate layer at the edge of the induction range according to the required induction range.
In the step 6), the curing and packaging adopt a UV curing resin dispensing method.
The principle of the invention is as follows:
the flexible pressure sensor is used for detecting the size and fluctuation of pressure, and is used for indirectly detecting the size and fluctuation of the pressure by fixing a flexible conductive material on a specific substrate and other conductive substrates together through gluing and dispensing, leading out electrodes and measuring the resistance change between the electrodes. The invention realizes the pressure sensor which has high sensitivity and high reliability and can be applied to the flexible stressed substrate, the process adopted by the invention is simple, the invention can be very conveniently compatible with the processing process of the existing resistance screen, and the large-scale production and application are easy to realize. Specifically, a special isolation layer is added between the high-elasticity sensing layer and the conductive material of the flexible substrate layer, and the sensing layer and the conductive material are attached and packaged, so that the two conductive layers in the sensing area are in a discontinuous electrical isolation state. The two layers of conductive materials are separated by the isolating layer, so that the two layers of conductive materials are in contact with each other in a smaller area, but most areas are still kept separated, under the condition of pressure, the contact area of the two layers of conductive materials is increased, namely, the parallel resistance in the parallel circuit is reduced, the resistance of the whole circuit is reduced, and the size and fluctuation of pressure change can be measured through the reduced resistance value. The particular selection of the sensing layer material and the conductive material layer ensures that the process can be resumed and repeated.
The invention has the beneficial effects that:
1. the process method of the invention has good process compatibility with industrially mature resistive touch screens, and is easy to realize large-scale production.
2. The pressure sensor has high sensitivity, and has small deformation, so that the resistance can be greatly changed, and the pressure can be detected.
3. The pressure sensor can realize flexibility structurally and is applied to industries such as wearable and electronic skin.
4. The invention can realize the requirements of different sensitivity and measuring range of different sensors by adjusting the thickness of the isolation layer, the appearance of the isolation layer and the sheet resistance of the two layers of electrodes.
5. The pressure sensor can be transparent and flexible after being made of transparent materials, and can be applied to electronic digital products such as mobile phones, computers and the like.